


The Wind and the Sea (Shijuni and Yivree's prologue)

by CASIOPEA mk II (cloaked_saurosuchus)



Series: Chronicles of the CASIOPEAs [1]
Category: Flight Rising
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-07
Updated: 2019-06-12
Packaged: 2020-04-12 10:10:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19129897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloaked_saurosuchus/pseuds/CASIOPEA%20mk%20II
Summary: Story of the clan's founders, Shijuni and Yivree.





	1. Sleepless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shijuni has a midnight conversation with a good friend and learns about the world of guardians.

He always hated the sea.

Which is odd, because he loved the wind and when you think about it, they have more in common than not. One stretches into depths unseen and the other reaches into highs not reached by even the bravest. They both could be violent and dangerous, but also calm and helpful.

But the sea was different.

He was bound to it, shackled by an old debt he could never repay nor evade in the first place.

Shijuni grumbled under his breath and decided that trying to sleep tonight was futile. Quietly, he got up and slipped out of his undersized cabin to the deck. It was silent, apart from the wood creaking as the waves softly rocked the ship. He looked up to the stars as the moonlight bounced of his speckled, sand-coloured scales.

The sky was calm. Inviting.

Without thinking about it, he shuffled his rusty wings and shifted his weight _just a little-_

"You know that the captain banned that. He'd feel - _and hear_ \- you taking off, you're not that small, ya'know."

Shijuni came back to his senses and steered his look just a few inches to the right. From the top of the mast, a dark fae was looking down on the guardian, her tailtip curiously twitching. "What _are_ you doing here in the middle of the night, though?" she asked.

Shijuni drooped a little and sighed. "I just can't sleep. Sylva, if you want to, I can take your shift tonight."

The fae shook her head. "I guess that's just about as good of an explanation as any else. No thanks though. You know how much I like starry nights." She turned her head towards the sky and streched her wings a little bit, catching some of the soft breeze and showing off the shiny patten on them. "Besides," she added, "I have a feeling you'd fly off without my supervision. And I don't want ya to get into trouble for breaking captain's order to not leave the ship just because you're instinctively itching to go on a Search."

Shijuni nervously shifted his weight. He didn't understand. Was he supposed to understand? "...Sylva? Why would I want to go search for something?"

The fae snapped around so suddenly that Shijuni jumped up a little bit. Her ocean blue eyes turned wide and her frills dropped. "You don't- By gods, I know you are the only guardian on the ship, but still, I can't believe you never-"

With every word, Shijuni grew more panicked. "Sylva! What is it? Please tell me!" he interrupted her, barely managing to keep his volume low enough to not wake up anyone. For some reason, this information, this single word, this... thing he didn't know about, it seemed _so incredibly important_.

"Oh my goodness." Sylva quickly and quietly descended down the mast so that she'd be on the guardian's eye level. "Okay. Calm down. I'm probably not the best to explain this but I'll try my best."

Shijuni hesitantly sat down and took a deep breath. "A-alright." His voice was still shaky.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle ya like that. It just caught me off guard. Have you... Have you never spoken to a different guardian?"

"Not much. My job isn't very conversation-heavy."

"Oh. Of course. 'Stand by and look scary,' right?"

"And occasionally growl, yeah."

"Have other guardians never asked you about... About the captain while you were with him? Protecting him? About him being your Charge?"

Shijuni thought for a second, sifting through his memories. "I... I think one asked me what was it like to be in charge of such an asshole, or something like that. Why is it important?" The tip of his tail twitched. Why did he all of the sudden feel like he didn't understand _anything_? What was he missing?

"Okay. Alright." Sylva took a deep breath. "Let's start from the basics."

"Dragons like you, guardians, are not only known to be created by the Tidelord, to be a generally powerful and good swimmers, but they - no, _you_ \- have a very specific... Tradition? Calling? I don't know how to exactly call it. But, once a guardian grows out their hatchling scales, they go embark on something called _the Search_."

Shijuni laid down onto the deck as Sylva searched for words, coiling his tail around him, the tip still anxiously twitching. But this time, he kept listening.

"The Search is a journey to find their _Charge_. Each guardian has an individual, object, place or something else they feel the calling to protect, usually for the rest of their lives. That... That is their Charge." She stopped again, looking at Shijuni with sympathy. And guilt. "Guardians don't consider their kin without a Charge an entire dragon," she said in a much quieter voice. "I never realised nobody told you. I am so sorry."

Shijuni, while deep in thought, still didn't like one of his only friends being sad in front of him. He put on a slight smile. "That's... that's okay. Wouldn't that make the captain my Charge though? Because I protect him? Because I am his bodyguard?"

Sylva quickly looked around to make sure nobody was listening and jumped down next to the guardian. "Absolutely not," she whispered. "While that might be what the captain _wants_ you to think, just because you protect him doesn't make him your Charge." She made a few steps to be closer to Shijuni and flared out all her frills with a determined look. "As far as I understand, Charge doesn't come out of the fact that you _have_ to do something. It comes out of a deep... calling inside you. Because you _want_ it." She placed her paw onto one of the guardian's chest plates. "It comes from _inside_ you. At least how I understand it." She retreated and her frills dropped again. "Unfortunately, I'm not the best dragon to ask about such things." Her stare was drilling through the deck, unable to look up. "Shijuni. The captain is not a good person," Sylva whispered, her voice almost getting drowned by the night wind.

Shijuni evaded her gaze as she looked back at him. "I know. But he saved me. He raised me. I... I have a debt with him," he said, almost as quietly as she did.

The two stayed in a heavy, almost mournful silence for a good minute.

"You should go to sleep," Sylva finally said and started slowly climbing up the mast. "Maybe you'll get a chance to ask another guardian in the port tomorrow. Or search around a little bit. You're going to need as much energy as possible."

Shijuni slowly stood up and nodded. "Yeah. I think I'll do that." He walked up all the way to the entrance to the crew's cabins before he looked around and whispered a short "thank you" as he vanished into the depths of the ship.

And so, Sylva was left on the deck alone again. But as the fae stared into the starry sky, something was different. She couldn't focus on the constellations. She didn't find joy in the stars reflecting off of her wings. Her thoughts were running all over the place and when she thought about Shijuni, her _friend_ , not being able to leave because of the captain holding him under an unrepayable debt, her frills and wings flared out, trembling. She turned around to face the captain's cabin. She felt like her eyes would burn through the lacquered wood covering it.

"This _will_ blow up into your face and _I can't wait_ until that day, asshole."


	2. Business

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shijuni runs an errand with the captain, but his mind wanders somewhere completely different.

The next day was exceptionally busy, as if the captain knew what was going on. He had a lot of errands to run in the city and Shijuni followed the off-white pearlcatcher as a large, slightly threatening shadow. If he was lucky, nobody would threaten him and no fighting would need to be done.

While he was _really_ good at that, he _absolutely hated_ it.

But it was all he knew. It was all he had.

He tried to follow the captain through the bustling city as he always did. But it was almost a routine by this point. Shijuni had seen so many port towns, and they were always the same smudge of so many colours, activities and dragons, a collection without any cohesion at all. They all just blended together. Usually he was really good at focusing at the task at hand, but lately, he spent more and more time wondering how the inner continent looked like. And this time, he still had the midnight conversation on his mind.

While his feet followed the pearlcatcher, his mind wandered off. And apparently, his expression reflected that.

"Shijuni!" the captain snapped his fingers in front of him and brought him back to reality. They were standing in a back alley, next to a building that certainly wasn't made for dragons as large as guardians. "The supplier will be here soon. Focus!" the pearlcatcher snapped.

"Yes sir," Shijuni slightly bowed and then stretched out his talons a little bit, knowing very well what order will follow.

"Look vaguely threatening, so that they don't get any funny ideas. I'll do the talking."

"Yes sir." Shijuni took a deep breath and straightened his shoulders, raising his head in a faux confident gesture. Then he slightly unfolded his wings, just enough to look like he's ready to leap and strike at a moment's notice. He looked down onto the pearlcatcher with a carefully practiced cold stare.

"Perfect. Oh, here they come."

From the other end of the street, a duo emerged. A slightly ragged, nervously pacing tundra, and a surprisingly small guardian, calmly walking behind them. It wasn't anything unusual, as hiring guardians as bodyguards was a fairly common practice for local merchants, although this one seemed a little bit older than was ordinary, judging by his greying beard. As the tundra skittishly approached the captain, Shijuni met the guardian's gaze and was startled by it's depth. His eyes were calm. Grounded. Knowing. And brimming with resolve.

Shijuni was hard-pressed to keep up his cold facade as he internally shook. He had a deep-rooted feeling that if something were to happen, this guardian would be a force to be reckoned with.

"You're Constantine?" the tundra finally asked.

"That is correct. You're Samuel, I presume," the captain replied coldly. As the tundra hesitantly nodded, he huffed with frustration. "Alright. We'll discuss the details inside. Both of you, stay here," he quickly turned to the two guardians before slipping through a door of the building they were next to.

Samuel hesitated just for a second and looked over their shoulder to give _both_ of the guardians a faint, unconvincing smile, before following suit and vanishing inside.

This _absolutely_ disarmed Shijuni and his facade dropped. The other dragon noticed and with a scoff, he gently tapped his nose. "They could smell your hesitance. And _I_ could see it." He paused, still watching Shijuni as he tried his best to evade any eye contact. "Hmph. Why are you putting on a play if he's not even your Charge? You're young. You should be out on your Search, not being stuck with a shady sailor."

"I- I can't."

The older guardian squinted at him suspiciously. "Oh, why?"

Shijuni was starting to get antsy. "H- he found me before I even hatched. He raised me, he fed me, he taught me everything I know, the _least_ I can do to try to repay him is to protect him as best as I can and do what he wants from m-"

"If he didn't let you go on your Search then he didn't raise you properly you idiot," the guardian interrupted him. "And you're not a _fucking dog_. You don't owe anyone _being on their leash_." He stepped closer to Shijuni and raised a claw up to the alarmed guardian's face. "And _trust me kid_ , once you get your Charge, putting this baseless loyalty in front of it will be the _worst decision of your life_. Don't do it."

"O- okay." Shijuni was relieved to see the guardian's claw fall down.

"Is... Is Samuel your Charge?" he finally asked after few moments of silence. The guardian snickered in response.

"You're a curious kid, aren't you? Not exactly. My Charge is their entire family line, though Samuel currently needs me the most. They didn't always appreciate me looming over them, but we've come to a mutually beneficial agreement. I try not to be paranoid an pushy, and they try to not get into dangerous situations more than is necessary."

"And yet you let them trade with a shady sailor?"

The deep laughter gave Shijuni answer to his question before a single word was even spoken. "As I already said, I try not to be pushy, especially when it comes to their business. But make no mistake kid," the guardian leaned over to Shijuni with a grin full of very sharp teeth, "You two are no threat. I'd rip you to shreds before you'd get to do _anything_."

Shijuni stood there, frozen more in awe than fear from the guardian's vague threats or personal space invasion. The guardian apparently considered the discussion ended, as he got back into his initial position, looking considerably more calm and collected than Shijuni was, his grin turning more into a slight smirk.

So this was what being a guardian was like? Shijuni's tailtip nervously twitched and he had to sit down to process everything. He should've asked someone sooner. Oh gods, why _didn't_ he ask anyone sooner? What if he messes something up? What if he doesn't find his Charge at all?

The fact that he looked like a reprimanded dog clued the other guardian enough on what he was thinking. The smirk vanished. "Don't worry. Follow your instincts and you'll find your Charge in time."

They both smiled at each other in a split second of understanding, before the guardian perked up and returned to his normal smirk. "Look lively, kid! They're coming out."

For a moment, panic ran across Shijuni's face, but quickly he stood up and pulled up his cold facade. Just in time.

Constantine and Samuel appeared in the doorway and walked over to their guardians. The pearlcatcher looked rather satisfied, but absolutely nothing changed about the tundra's nervousness. They exchanged a few quiet words with their guardian, bowed and left.

Shijuni relaxed a little, but tried to not drop his act enough to give the captain any ideas about his conversation or his thoughts. It turned out to be a needless measure. The pearlcatcher turned to him with a wide grin, his mind somewhere else. "The shipment will be ready tomorrow. But _now_ , we need to find a fast-working engineer, 'cause we're getting the ship an engine."

Constantine slipped around Shijuni and started trotting down the street. "We're gonna make _so much money_ from this."

**Author's Note:**

> I don't have beta readers and I'm not a native English speaker. If you spot grammar errors/typos, I'd be grateful if you let me know! ♥


End file.
